Three Faces of Pandemic-Related Fear: Psychometrics of Physiological, Cognitive, and Behavioral Measures of Coronaphobia in the Cypriot Population

Coronavirus anxiety is defined as a psychological contrast characterized by excessive fear, obsessive thoughts, and reassurance-seeking behaviors associated with COVID-19. As current scales have been tested primarily in North American populations, we aimed to translate and culturally adapt three measures of dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety—the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS), the Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS), and the Coronavirus Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors Scale (CRBS)—for the first time in Greek-speaking populations. To translate existing scales, we followed best practices for cross-cultural comparisons using forward translation (English to Greek) and backward translation (Greek to English) with expert translation review, prior to conducting pilot testing and confirmatory factor analysis in a bespoke survey population. A total of 405 adults from Cyprus participated in this study. The results indicated that the Greek versions of these measures demonstrated adequate reliability (Cronbach’s alphas > 0.70) and strong factor structure, as supported through confirmatory factor analysis. However, only the CAS exhibited evidence of both convergent and divergent validity. Our study makes several innovative contributions which have broad implications for crisis preparedness, including providing a framework for mental health interventions in future pandemics or Black Swan events.